Marijuana Licensing Corruption

Chris EdwardsFifteen states have legalized recreational marijuana and 36 states have legalized medical marijuana. As we move toward legalization across the nation, state policymakers should be learning lessons from the reforms we ’ve seen so far.One lesson is that ceding full control to local governments and allowing them to impose licensing in a discretionary and opaque manner is a recipe for corruption. The FBI issued a statement on the problem in 2019: “States require licenses to grow and sell the drug —opening the possibility for public officials to become susceptible to bribes in exchange for those licenses.” The problem is not commonplace licensing for health and safety, it is putting tight and arbitrary caps on the numbers of business licenses approved.California allows local governments to ban marijuana businesses completely or to impose caps on the numbers of licenses. Only aboutone ‐​third of jurisdictions in the state allow marijuana ‐​related businesses, such as growing, manufacturing, and dispensing. In these areas, approval processes are complex and license caps are low, and since demand is high licenses are a highly valued commodity.TheLos Angeles Times describes some of the resulting problems:Since California voters legalized recreational cannabis four years ago, allegations of conflicts of interest, bribery and bias in the permitting process have plagued cities and counties as they try to regulate the fledgling industry. Th...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs